“Damn it, I need this to end!”
From the recently converted office in the corner of our apartment I could hear my girlfriend push her chair away from her desk. The wheels ground against the wood slats, at first heavy under her full weight and then with a quiet drifting roll. I could guess that she’d gotten up and left it to coast into a corner on its own. I could also guess where next she’d gone.
I grabbed the cotton swab resting near my keyboard and used it to quickly hit the A key, which set my phone as Away in the virtual call queue. Free from customer service needs for a few minutes I stepped away from my headset’s foam earpiece, which rested next to me like I was listening to a sousaphone’s bell. I’d been sitting cross-legged for some time and quickly stretched to prepare for what I’d have to do next.
I’d always worked from home, but ever since the incident that shrunk me down to these scant few inches my laptop had been set up on the kitchen counter. A series of boxes and cans acted as the oversized steps I used to climb up and down giving me full access to our home. But Hailey and I had both agreed that it was better and safest if I wasn’t traversing across the floor to move about the apartment.
Almost immediately after realizing my incident was irreversible Hailey and I planned to put up shelves at her eye-level so I could walk around safely, but then the Quarantine hit and money got tight. We were both lucky enough to still have jobs in some form, thank God, but Hailey had been the major breadwinner and her hours had been severely cut as she transitioned to working from home.
I could hear Hailey sobbing as I jogged barefoot across the long and fat slats of the hardwood floor. The doll clothes I had on were comfortable enough, but we hadn’t yet found shoes I could bear to wear. I could feel my heels coming down not just on the stiff wood but also crumbs and Hailey’s errant strands of hair. They were like drumsticks under my little toes.
There was a risk that I could be tripped by the rope-like locks, sending me tumbling and prone and now even harder to see on the wood pattern if Hailey came stomping out of the office. But I couldn’t bear to hear her so upset all alone. Despite the threat I moved as quickly as I could.
I knew why she was crying. At times I thought I’d adjusted better to getting shrunk than she was adjusting to working at home all the time. I knew this new world was hard on Hailey. It’d be easy to judge her, to say she should just be thankful for a job, appreciate spending more time with her girlfriend, to adjust like everyone else was.
But she wasn’t just struggling with being a homebound extravert. She’d had a support team at work she’d lost. The ability to have meetings in person where she could interpret body language and tone that didn’t come through in emails. A clear sense of structure, purpose, and direction. Nobody can rightly judge how losing all of that at once can affect someone they don’t know at all.
As I reached the doorway of what had once been our quiet reading room and TV den. It seemed like more than just a few weeks had passed since the cables and webcams and second monitors and laptops had turned our nook of leisure into a nest of stress and anxiety.
I saw Hailey had collapsed on the little couch wedged across the back wall. It was so small her knees were bent up into the air, her feet curled around the armrest. Her bawling cries had changed to quiet moans and the gasps of hyperventilation. I could feel her panic attack from the doorway. And her weighted blanket was laying in a lump on the floor at the end of the couch, opposite - and so very far - from her clenched fists.
I ran over to the pile, a mountain to me at my scale. I gripped the material and began to climb. I knew there was no way I’d be able to pull it on to Hailey to help relieve her anxiety - I could barely lift the thing when my height was measured in feet! I just needed it to get me up onto the couch. And it got me most of the way there, short by only a few inches.
Which is a relative problem.
Throwing my leg over onto the cushion I strained to pull myself alongside Hailey’s hip. I grabbed onto her shorts as I stood up, and once I had my balance I continued to climb up onto her stomach. Carefully I crawled over her ready-for-any-random-video-call blouse along her torso, to the center of her ribs, and past her heaving breasts. As I reached the spot where her sternum met her clavicle, where the cut of her shirt collar bared pale skin, I let my body gently collapse into a ball.
Hailey’s breathing remained erratic for a few moments, shifting my little curled form back and forth like a carnival ride, but I maintained my place. Slowly her breaths began to regain a regular pattern, deep inhales and exhales becoming more and more predictable. Gradually the rising and falling of her chest became shallower and shallower.
As Hailey reached a point where I was barely shifting with each of her breaths I could see her slowly uncurling the fingers of her left hand. Four red divots ran across her palm; the nail of her pointer finger had nearly cut the skin. Hailey raised both her hands and gently cupped them over me. I knew that meant she’d gotten herself to the other side of the panic attack - not recovered from it, but through it. Even though neither of us said anything we were now each here and present for the other.
I knew it would only be a matter of time before Hailey would draw up the strength I recognized she had within her, return me to my station, and soldier on for the rest of the day. And if we needed to do this again tomorrow, we would. And the day after that? Of course. We had each other and we would make do.
I know I don’t weigh much now.
But I weigh enough.